Mike Roche

Manufacture and Design

Founded in 1939, Thomas Holdsworth & Sons produced and imported puzzles and games for several generations of New Zealand children. The company made its first jigsaw puzzles to use up an overrun of calendars, which were glued to plywood and manufactured with a cutter adapted from an old sewing machine. In the 1950s they increasingly moved to making cardboard jigsaw puzzles. During this decade they produced several with educational themes. This included one focussing on train and bus travel, and the example shown, depicting industries and products. The design was the work of Dudley Watson Bain (1909–86). Auckland-born Bain was a commercial artist. His designs featured on a number of Holdsworth & Sons games and puzzles. He also illustrated a children’s book written by his wife Phyllis, Fairy Folk at Work, published by Holdsworth & Sons in 1925.

Message

The main message in the design is a celebratory one: that New Zealand is a world leading exporter of butter, cheese, mutton, and lamb. The distribution of these industries across the country is shown. Secondary themes are the importance of seaports, coastal and international shipping in the national economy, and the range of tourism and recreation activities available, all based around natural features and resources.

Intent

A jigsaw puzzle provides entertainment. It can also help children learn, in this case about New Zealand’s industries and primary products. Completing it enabled children to appreciate what their own region produced and how it compared to neighbouring districts. New Zealand in the 1950s remained one of Britain’s ‘offshore’ farms. The passive message of the puzzle reinforces what seemed to be the enduring nature of this connection. In this respect it unintentionally hints at the vulnerability of specialising in a small number of exports predominately for a single overseas market.

Dudley Bain designed puzzles and games for Holdsworth & Sons during the 1950s. The design of this particular puzzle is attributed to him, but in the case of another board game called ‘Tour of New Zealand’, a ‘snakes and ladders’ inspired game based on New Zealand towns and cities, it was actually copyrighted to him.

Holdsworth & Sons branded the ‘industries and products’ puzzle as part of their ‘Instructional and Educational’ series. In this way it appealed to parents and grandparents as a gift that had worth over and above the amusement value of regular jigsaws. 

Technique

The puzzle shows a map of New Zealand and makes use of various conventions used by mapmakers, but it is the work of a graphic designer rather than a cartographer.¹ The two main islands are each depicted via the much-used Mercator’s projection. Colour, predominately shades of red and yellow, and symbols are used to show the different regions and the location of various types of industry. A cartouche explains the various symbols and a small inset map puts the main islands – labelled only as ‘North Island’ and ‘South Island’ – in correct relative position. A separate panel draws additional attention to the scale of the country’s exports. The main map repositions the North Island and South Island and has them facing each other. This enables the largest possible sized islands to be drawn within the size of the puzzle. The map is not a plane or vertical view, it is slightly oblique as if you are looking at it from an angle.

The labelled regions approximate those of the old 19th century provincial boundaries. Colour is used to suggest relief, at least in the South Island, while in the North Island hatching is employed, somewhat impressionistically, to show the main ranges and hills. Major river and lake systems are shown and named. A horizon with clouds is depicted on the top part of the puzzle along with passenger and cargo ships. In the 1950s these services, rather than aircraft, connected New Zealand to the rest of the world. A subsidiary theme depicts various tourist attractions. Icons related to skiing, fishing, and other activities are spread across the puzzle, mimicking the style of early map makers filling up unknown areas. The icon in the lower right-hand corner interestingly references Abel Tasman’s sighting of New Zealand in 1642, rather than Cook’s in 1769.

Context

The puzzle was one of several donated to Te Manawa by Luanne Gooch (nee Russ) in 2015. It was purchased in the early 1960s when she was a child in New Plymouth. The puzzle located the city of New Plymouth, depicted ‘Egmont’ – now Taranaki Maunga – and featured a silhouette of a large red cow, the symbol indicating an important centre of the dairy industry. Used by another generation in Palmerston North, this city’s name is awkwardly positioned to make space for the Wellington Province label. The icon for wheat growing near Marton does not depict the economic base of the wider district very accurately. Rather it was dairying, frozen meat, and wool that contributed more to the regional economy in the 1950s.

Puzzles have an inbuilt redundancy; once completed they lose their challenge, though this may be rekindled if they are broken up and reattempted later on. In this instance there was no box with a picture of the completed puzzle for guidance. The outline of New Zealand’s main islands made for a recognisable pattern, and as the jigsaw had only 140 separate pieces, it was simple enough to be completed in a relatively short time. Frequent use of the puzzle led to wear and tear, resulting in damage by pieces being bent, scratched or lost altogether.

The puzzle dates from the 1950s. Since the 1890s the New Zealand economy, assisted by refrigeration technology, had developed within the British Empire as a supplier of primary produce for the United Kingdom. In 1930, 81% (by value) of New Zealand’s annual exports had gone to this single market. By 1950 this had fallen to 65%, declining to 56% in 1959.² In 1963 the British government indicated that they intended to seek membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). They were rebuffed by France’s President Charles de Gaulle, but finally gained membership in 1973 (then left the now European Union in 2020). New Zealand exporters were forced to find new markets and produce other commodities. By 1990 only 7% of New Zealand exports by value went to the UK. The puzzle, offering a map of ‘industries and products,’ in retrospect provides a ‘snapshot’ of the end of an era in the country’s economic development.

First published by Te Manawa on 7 August 2023; updated and republished with the author’s permission.

Footnotes

1. Technical specifications: an offset photomechanical print on cardboard, one single sheet, 274mm by 368mm. ↩︎
2. See New Zealand Official Yearbooks, 1930–60. ↩︎

Bibliography

Bain, D.W., fl. 1950s, Holdson’s Educational Tour of New Zealand, [Board game, 1950s?], Eph-f-Games-1950s-01. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

Holdson Limited New Zealand, URL: https://holdson.com, accessed 13 June 2023.

New Zealand Official Yearbooks, 1930–60, URL: https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators-and-snapshots/digitised-collections/yearbook-collection-18932012, accessed 29 August 2024.